Amazing dive
06 April 2011 | Los Islotes
Steve
Jacques Cousteau called the Sea of Cortez the largest aquarium in the world, on Tuesday we decided to charter a dive trip out to Los Islotes, a small out crop where there is a sea lion rookery, to see if Jacques was right. As luck would have it, the company we went through had hired a professional underwater photographer to take pictures for their brochures and website, so we were treated to a full tour of both Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida on our way to Los Isotes.
On our first dive we found out just how right old Jaques was, there were many fish of all different types and colors, there were starfish everywhere you looked and even the rocks were steaming with colorful marine growth. As we slowly swam around Los Islotes large schools of sardines appeared, by large I mean thousands, and all this time the sea lions would swim by, darting around us and peeking in our masks.
After our first dive we boarded the punga and went over to a beautiful beach where the guys set up a great lunch. We had picked up a bunch of snorkelers on the way out, and they all decided to stay at the beach while Shaybo, our dive master Arturo, the photographer and myself headed back out to Los Isotes, this time we were going to do a drift dive, thats where the boat drops you off one place and you drift with the current getting picked up at a different spot. Upon entering the water it soon became very apparent that things had changed from the first dive, there were now....and I am NOT exaggerating...millions of sardines, with all the sardines the amount of larger fish and also increased substantially, the water was full of sooo many fish you can't believe it, we swam through the sardines and through a narrow gap in the rocks, noticing that the sea lion activity had also increased as they playfully swam about, tugging at Arturos fins.
Once we were back on the panga the excitement level was high, I am a very inexperienced diver, but Shaybo, who is about to become a dive master, Arturo, who has over 5000 dives and the photographer, who has 5000 hours all were jacked up, they all said that this was one of their best dives EVER, and you could tell by their excitement that I had just experienced something very special.
I think Jacques Cousteau was slightly off, as this was like no aquarium I've ever seen.
Please check out the photo gallery of this amazing trip.